Project Number: 3655-21000-048-49
Project Type: General Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Aug 31, 2012
End Date: Jun 30, 2014

Objective:
1. Identify high-yielding, nutritious onion and carrot cultivars adapted to a major South Asian production area. 2. Establish Bangladesh oriented crop production and postharvest storage guidelines and manuals, programs and cell phone based information to integrate water, nutrient and pest management practices that optimize inputs, minimize off target impacts, and provide sound postharvest storage practices for seed production. 3. Establish onion and carrot seed production systems to better fulfill local demands with a goal to decrease expensive seed imports, increase crop yield and improve human nutrition. 4. Establish collaboration with AVRDC/WVC on large-scale carrot and onion seed production (large-scale seed production not currently part of their onion effort).

Approach:
1. Germplasm Collections and Field Trials. Collect and evaluate local and regional onion and carrot seed in Bangladesh. Evaluate carrot carotenoids and onion thiosulfinates in diverse germplasm to estimate nutritional value and develop molecular marker fingerprints. 2. Seed production. Evaluate factors that influence onion and carrot seed production including nutrient, water, and pest management. Develop recommendations based upon on-farm research results. 3. Postharvest storage. Develop post-harvest storage systems for carrot root and onion bulb preservation to induce flowering for seed production. Develop recommendations necessary for farmers to successfully store roots and bulbs for seed production. 4. Initiate deployment of technologies: Determine opportunities to incorporate carrot and onion storage into existing cold storage facilities to move research and technologies developed to large-scale. 5. Train farmers, homestead owners, rural youth and women on seed production methodologies. Training of trainers (TOT) to further extend information on information and technologies developed to local trainers. Train research supervisors of GO, such as BARI, and NGO personnel, providing pertinent information to the user community. Participation of rural women and unemployed rural youth in this system will be a focus.